I saw a thread on Twitter and Reddit asking whether characters like Batman, Iron Man, and Iron Fist actually need to be wealthy for their stories to work. Some people were saying that, in the DCU, Batman doesn’t have to be rich—he could just be middle class and the story would still work. Similarly, if the MCU gets rebooted, Tony Stark wouldn’t necessarily need to be wealthy and could be working class instead.
A lot of people argued that this would make these characters more relatable and easier to root for. Personally, I’d say no. Elseworlds stories are fine, but if you’re adapting these characters into movies or TV shows, you should stay at least somewhat comic-accurate. Their wealth is a key part of who they are.
Stark Industries, Wayne Enterprises, and Rand Industries are characters in the story too, and they play important roles in shaping these heroes and their worlds.
It’s similar to how Clark Kent being a reporter or Peter Parker struggling financially are essential to their characters. Those traits help define their stories.
What do you think?
The problem with Batman and him having extensive martial arts training is the fact that to have extensive martial arts training like that you have to be wealthy. To travel the world to do the sales to train and all the styles he did typically requires a certain level of comfort in order to afford the luxury of not only traveling but then spending enough time to master those things while at the same time feeding yourself and taking care of yourself. Not only that but the amount of gadgets he has is definitely high level. If he weren’t he’d be closer to like say Daredevil who lived a comfortable life but had nowhere near any money to do all the training he did. Daredevil fortunately has a superpower in his hearing and sense of sight through that. Iron fist was much the same way. Extensive martial arts training because he was rich enough to go get the extensive martial arts training. Ironman is definitely one that needs to have the money. I mean we have the example of iron heart who was not very rich had to rebuild everything and wall yes genius level had nowhere near the resources to build the many Mark versions of her suit and we can see how much struggle she’s had to even maintain the one she currently has. Which she did have to steal to be able to get in the first place.